Suicide knows no boundaries  ethnic or otherwise

Clarence Page Chicago Tribune

11:19 PM, Feb 6, 2012

The death of Don Cornelius, creator and host of "Soul Train," brought two conflicting memories to mind: the weekly joy of that iconic program as a defining feature of black American pop culture and the terrible pain inflicted on the surviving family and friends of those who commit suicide.

Like countless other boomers, I feel as though I grew up with "Soul Train." The old clips look like an amusing period piece today, especially to our kids or grandkids who wonder how any of us could have thought those "Saturday Night Fever" fashions were cool.

But in the 1970s and beyond, "Soul Train" defined cutting-edge cool. It became the longest running syndicated show of its type on TV and, as Cornelius said every week, "the hippest trip in the galaxy."

But the hip trip finally came to an end a few years ago on TV and, for Cornelius, amid reports in recent years of failing health. Police say he died in his Los Angeles home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

That tragedy has special meaning in the African American community, which has long nourished a dangerous myth that black people don't commit suicide.

It is a point of mythical ethnic pride that our ancestors found ways to persevere despite centuries of slavery, struggle and hardship. Black people created the blues, it is often said, because we didn't have psychotherapists.

Although whites and Native Americans have the highest suicide rates, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the black suicide rate has been high enough in recent years to claim one African American every 4.5 hours.

No group is immune. By gender, non-Hispanic white and Native American men have the highest suicide rates, of about 25 per 100,000. That's more than four times the rate of women in each racial group. It also is more than twice the rate of black and Hispanic men, whose suicide rate of about 11 per 100,000 is five times that rate of black and Hispanic women. Asian-American men have a rate of about 9 per 100,000, slightly more than twice the rate of Asian-American women.

Yet the black suicide myth persists. "As a mental-health advocate, over the years I've heard variations of the 'black people don't commit suicide' meme," wrote Bassey Ikpi at the black-oriented website, The Root, after Cornelius' death. "Yesterday the chorus was deafening. People went so far as to create elaborate conspiracy theories rather than accept what could be a simple truth — that Cornelius had taken his own life."

I share her sense of frustration. I suddenly became an expert because of a personal tragedy. Back in May 1984, suicide ended the life and career of Leanita McClain, an award-winning Chicago Tribune columnist and ghetto-to-Gold-Coast success story. She was also my former wife.

She killed herself with an overdose of prescribed pills two years after our divorce. Her upward career trajectory, like our marriage, was stopped only by the furies of her relentless depression.

"Happiness is a private club that will not let me enter," she wrote in her "generic suicide note."

It is not hard, although it is not pain-free either, for me to imagine that Don Cornelius could have written the same message. Suicides inflict a terrible cruelty on the survivors. Everyone asks "why?" and there are no easy answers. I was surprised by how many of my friends came forth to share stories of their loved ones who had ended their own lives or come close to it in their severe depression.

I also learned about guilt. People feel guilty if they failed to get help for their lost loved one, a counselor told me, and they feel guilty if they did get help and the loved one killed themselves anyway. It is best to seek the help. Whether you believe it or not, you have too much to lose.